Arrest Warrant Sought: Charge Would Be Criminally Negligent Homicide

Police want to charge a state legislator with criminally negligent homicide in connection with the January death of Carol Sinisgalli, who died of exposure in a remote area of Rocky Hill.

Prosecutors in Superior Court in New Britain are reviewing an arrest warrant application seeking to charge state Rep. James O'Rourke, sources close to the investigation said. The warrant must be signed by a prosecutor and a judge before an arrest may be made. Criminally negligent homicide is a misdemeanor, punishable by up to one year in jail and/or a fine of up to $2,000.

O'Rourke's attorney, Jake Donovan, said he had no comment Thursday evening. O'Rourke could not be reached.

The Cromwell Democrat was the last known person to see Sinisgalli, 41, alive. He told police he was trying to give her a ride home from a Cromwell bar late on the night of Jan. 21 after she got into his car uninvited. She jumped out of the car in the area of Dividend Road and Rachel Drive in Rocky Hill, he told police, and he assumed she lived in one of the houses there. She actually lived a half-mile away. O'Rourke and Sinisgalli, an employee of the state Department of Motor Vehicles, knew each other casually, Donovan has said.

A cross-country skier found Sinisgalli's frozen body between some nearby railroad tracks and the Connecticut River the next day. The state medical examiner ruled her death an accident.

The temperature plummeted through the teens that night, and Sinisgalli - who police say assaulted a man in a wheelchair at O'Leary's Digger McDuff's Tavern on Shunpike Road - was barefoot and without a coat when she got into O'Rourke's car in the bar's parking lot. O'Rourke told investigators he didn't notice she had no shoes on.

He stopped driving briefly at Dividend Road and Rachel Drive in Rocky Hill because Sinisgalli was grabbing his rearview mirror and garage door opener, knocking his glasses off, he told police, and Sinisgalli jumped out of his car.

Donovan has said in the past that O'Rourke agreed to drive Sinisgalli home because he didn't think she was in any condition to drive. Sinisgalli had been charged with driving while intoxicated in Rocky Hill a month earlier, police said.

Rocky Hill police Lt. John Herbst said two detectives, Roy Bombaci and Andrew O'Brien, questioned more than 40 people during the three-month investigation into Sinisgalli's death.

"The investigation has been concluded, and a copy of the entire case file has been sent to State's Attorney Scott Murphy for his review," Herbst said.

Murphy, reached Thursday, would not confirm or deny whether his office had received an application for O'Rourke's arrest.

O'Rourke, 45, represents the 32nd District, which includes Cromwell, Portland and part of Middletown.